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Allen Breed / AP
Sam Brake, farming director at the Biofuels Center of North Carolina, walks through a test plot of Arundo donax.
OXFORD, N.C. -- It's fast-growing and drought-tolerant, producing tons of biomass per acre. It thrives even in poor soil and is a self-propagating perennial, so it requires little investment once established.
To people in the renewable fuels industry, Arundo donax — also known as "giant reed" — is nothing short of a miracle plant. An Oregon power plant is looking at it as a potential substitute for coal, and North Carolina boosters are salivating over the prospect of an ethanol bio-refinery that would bring millions of dollars in investment and dozens of high-paying jobs to hog country.
But to many scientists and environmentalists, Arundo looks less like a miracle than a nightmare waiting to happen. Officials in at least three states have banned the bamboo-like grass as a "noxious weed"; California has spent more than $70 million trying to eradicate it. The federal government has labeled it a "high risk" for invasiveness.
Many are comparing Arundo, which can reach heights of 30 feet in a single season, to another aggressive Asian transplant — the voracious kudzu vine.
More than 200 scientists recently sent a letter to the heads of federal agencies including the Environmental Protection Agency and the Departments of Agriculture and Energy, urging them not to encourage the commercial planting of known invasives like Arundo.
"Many of today's most problematic invasive plants — from kudzu to purple loosestrife — were intentionally imported and released into the environment for horticultural, agricultural, conservation, and forestry purposes," they wrote Oct. 22. "It is imperative that we learn from our past mistakes by preventing intentional introduction of energy crops that may create the next invasive species catastrophe particularly when introductions are funded by taxpayer dollars."
Mark Conlon, vice president for sector development at the nonprofit Biofuels Center of North Carolina in Oxford, hates the comparison with "the weed that ate the South."
"There's no market for kudzu," says Conlon, who is among those promoting a proposed $170 million, 20 million-gallon-a-year ethanol project here — and Arundo's role in it. "There's no reason to manage it. It was thrown out in the worst places you can think of and left there."
Allen Breed / AP
Sam Brake shows a "rhizome" from an Arundo donax plant in a test plot near the Biofuels Center of North Carolina in Oxford, N.C.
His message about Arundo: It'll be different this time. We can control it.
But Mark Newhouser, who has spent nearly 20 years hacking this "nasty plant" from California's riverbanks and wetlands, has his doubts.
"Why take a chance?" he asks.
The back wall of the North Carolina biofuels center's lobby is dominated by a large timeline, beginning with the General Assembly's 2006 recognition of the state's potential as a biofuels leader.
The display ends with a panel declaring "10% in 10 Years" — meaning that by 2017, a decade after the center's creation, officials hope companies here will be producing the equivalent of a tenth of the liquid transportation fuels consumed in the state annually, or 600 million gallons of renewable biofuel a year.
"An extraordinarily audacious goal," W. Steven Burke, the center's president and CEO, says proudly.
Near the middle of the timeline is this: "November 2011: 50-acre energy grass propagation nursery established with Arundo donax."
The center's staff has explored a variety of biofuel raw materials, from food crops like corn, sugar beets and industrial sweet potatoes, to cottonwood and loblolly pine trees. Even pond scum — or duckweed. All were either hard to raise in quantity, too expensive or more valuable for other uses.
The staff also studied so-called "energy grasses" — giant Miscanthus, coastal Bermudagrass, switchgrass. Out behind the center, farming director Sam Brake planted test plots of four varieties of sorghum.
But for hardiness, ease of cultivation and maintenance, and, above all, yield per acre, none comes even close to Arundo donax.
"Wow! Exclamation point," says Burke, who, in his matching gray suit and shirt and with his snow-white hair and beard, evokes the evangelical preacher.
Believed to have sprung from the Indian subcontinent, Arundo has spread around the globe. Europeans have been using it for centuries in the production of reeds for woodwind instruments.
Like kudzu, which came to the United States as part of Japan's exhibit at the 1876 Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia, Arundo arrived here in the mid- to late 19th century. And also like kudzu, Arundo was once touted as a perfect crop to help stem erosion. In California and Texas, farmers, ranchers and government workers enthusiastically planted it along waterways and drainage ditches. Shallow rooted, the canes would break off and move downstream, starting new stands.
Arundo has become "naturalized" in 25 warmer-weather states, according to a USDA weed risk analysis released in June.
In banning it, California, Nevada and Texas have said the plant crowds out native species and consumes precious water.
The Tennessee Exotic Pest Plant Council lists it as a "Significant Threat." Virginia officials have labeled it "moderately invasive." The West Virginia Division of Natural Resources has categorized giant reed as "occasionally invasive." But that might change if it were to be promoted as a commercial crop, says Elizabeth Byers, a vegetation ecologist with the agency's wildlife diversity unit.
"I certainly wouldn't want to see any invasive species used as biomass," she says. "Because they can escape."
North Carolina is keeping an eye on Arundo, but the folks in Oxford say past need not be prologue.
Earlier this fall, Chemtex International christened the world's first commercial-scale cellulosic ethanol plant in the northwest Italian city of Crescentino. Turning inedible biomass into sugars, the company hopes to produce up to 20 million gallons of fuel a year.
By mid-2013, Chemtex wants to break ground on a like-sized plant that would employ 67 people in North Carolina. It has set its sights on the little city of Clinton, in the heart of hog country.
David Crouse, a soil scientist at North Carolina State University, says energy grass production and the Tar Heel State are "a logical match" — depending on which grass it is.
Spread across the state's coastal plain are about 100,000 acres of so-called sprayfields, onto which industrial farming operations pump millions of gallons of hog and chicken waste per year. In order to comply with federal clean water regulations for runoff of nutrients such as nitrogen, many of those fields are already planted with energy grasses, chiefly coastal Bermudagrass.
In terms of yield, Arundo far outpaces the competition — up to 20 dry tons per acre, versus 3 to 6 tons for Bermuda. So planting Arundo would require far less land to supply Chemtex's fiber needs. The problem is, the fields' owners also need to worry about absorbing the nitrogen in the manure and the jury is still out as to whether Arundo would be a good fit.
"If it's not, it's not where we need to be on the swine farms," Crouse says.
Brake and his colleagues in Oxford are trying to figure that out.
On a farm a few miles from the biofuels center, a dense patch of what look like anorexic palm trees waves in the light autumn breeze. They tower over the 6-foot-2 farming director.
Brake planted this quarter-acre plot of Arundo donax in 2010. He's been applying fertilizer at four different rates — zero to 120 pounds per acre — to gauge the plants' nutritional needs, as well as their ability to absorb nitrogen.
Even in the tightly packed, red-clay soil, they have thrived. Brake steps into the thicket and struggles to wrap his arms around a clump.
"It's about maybe 3 foot in diameter," he says.
So far, yields from North Carolina test plots have averaged from 5.8 dry tons per acre at the Oxford site to just over 11 tons in the sandy loam soils in which most Chemtex suppliers would be planting, though NCSU soil scientist Ron Gehl notes these are not yet "mature stands."
Brake grabs an Arundo stalk and walks until it's parallel with the ground. Tiny seeds cascade to the ground, clinging to a visitor's wet shoes.
"You afraid of becoming Johnny donax-seed?" he asks with a chuckle. The seeds are sterile, he says reassuringly.
Brake points to a joint on the stalk where a small sprout or "node" peeks out.
"Each node is a potential plant," he explains. "That makes it easy to propagate."
And that's what gives so many pause.
In the 16 years since Arundo was first identified in California's Sonoma Creek Watershed, Mark Newhouser has developed an attack strategy.
First, workers spray the mature cane with herbicide, then move in with the large flail mowers. If that doesn't do the trick, it's time for chain saws.
"And then you'd still have all of these stumps of cane sticking up everywhere," he says. "You can't even walk through there."
The cost: Up to $25,000 per acre.
To address such concerns in North Carolina, state agriculture officials teamed up with the biofuels center last year to craft a set of "best management practices" for energy crops. Among them are not planting directly adjacent to streams and irrigation canals, and establishing buffer zones of at least 20 feet around production fields.
They are listed as "voluntary." But anyone wishing to do business with Chemtex would have to sign a contract agreeing to certain ground rules, says executive vice president Paolo Carollo. He points out that a $99 million USDA loan guarantee announced this spring also came with certain mitigation measures.
Noting that Chemtex has already made conditional agreements to plant 10,000 acres near Clinton, Carollo points to a factory near Venice, Italy, that, from 1937 to 1962, used Arundo grown on 12,000 nearby acres in the production of fabric, including Rayon.
"And they never had issues of spread," he said in a phone interview from the company's headquarters in the coastal city of Wilmington. When production ceased, he said, those acres were converted back to pasture land.
Attempts to commercialize Arundo donax in other parts of the U.S. have met with limited success.
When a company proposed to use Arundo for power generation in Florida, the state Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services drafted regulations requiring permits for plots larger than 2 acres. Although some permits have been issued, the large-scale project that prompted the regulations never materialized.
And when Portland General Electric decided to convert a power plant from coal to biomass, Oregon state agriculture officials conducted a risk assessment for Arundo. Last year, the state authorized a 400-acre "control area," prohibiting plantings within a mile of water bodies and requiring growers to post a $1 million eradication bond.
In a statement released last March, the Native Plant Society of Oregon accused the state of understating the risks. It cited research suggesting that Arundo's sterile seeds might, through "genetic modification," become fertile.
When Chemtex announced its plans for North Carolina, the Environmental Defense Fund and others petitioned the state to have Arundo declared a noxious weed, and to ban it. Officials expect to make a decision by early next year.
Federal action could take longer.
In January, the EPA gave Arundo preliminary approval under the federal renewable fuel standard program — meaning producers could qualify for valuable carbon credits. When environmental groups complained that the decision was at odds with an executive order aimed at preventing the spread of invasive species, the agency agreed to re-evaluate the crop.
Without the EPA's renewable fuels designation, Arundo would be less profitable to grow. And without Arundo in the mix, says Conlon, "I would be greatly concerned" about the Chemtex project — and the state's grand plans.
"North Carolina's on the precipice of becoming an economic powerhouse around this whole idea of advanced biofuels," Conlon says. "There's room down there to build five or six of these facilities, if and when we can figure out the right balance between environmental concerns and economic viability."
Burke notes that Arundo has been sold in the state for years as an ornamental, without any problem. To him, it's a no-brainer.
But EDF Southeast Director Jane Preyer wonders if a hurricane-prone state like North Carolina is the smartest place to grow such a crop on so large a scale. In 1999, Hurricane Floyd caused widespread flooding that put much of eastern North Carolina under several feet of water.
Arundo, she says, appears "not worth the risk."
It's naive to think man can truly control nature, says Newhouser in California.
"You know, that's the thing with weeds. They know no boundaries, and they don't recognize fences. They don't follow rules."
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Leave a Comment:
Stop using corn! We can't afford to eat it.
Stop burning !!
We are burning ourselves out of existence !!
Pursue other types of energy production that do not involve burning.
.
Wind, solar and wave energy produce electricity but not carbon emissions.
Why invest so much in another CO2 emissions method?
"It is imperative that we learn from our past mistakes by preventing intentional introduction of energy crops that may create the next invasive species catastrophe particularly when introductions are funded by taxpayer dollars."
So make a choice - Biofuels, or Fossil fuels.
We need energy for a modern industrial economy, and we have to get it one way or the other.
These people oppose ALL forms of energy because they just hate modern society - Blind opposition to everything is not a realistic solution.
RealAmericansFirst "Wind, solar and wave energy produce electricity but not carbon emissions....Why invest so much in another CO2 emissions method?"
Because it's cheaper. If we pay three times as much as the Chinese for energy, they will get the jobs and we will pay the price.
For a really good look at our future, consider this 60 second utube video;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4LUumD0MwL8
Then what happens when something new comes along and this plan becomes obsolite. Better have a plan to get rid of the planted plots
Because the wind doesn't always blow, the sun doesn't always shine, and the ocean tends to break things.
You freaking people are CRAZY! I bet you believe God created the earth in 7 days too!
Truth is the core and magma layers of the earth have been burning for billions of years. Volcanic eruptions (on land and in oceans), geysers, and solar flares release way more CO2 admissions than does man. Without the existence of man on the earth wildfire would be evermore common place.
Additionally, the earth's magnetic pole isn't static. The pole is constantly shifting and scientific evidence is beginning to point to it as the primary culprit in climate change. When the dinosaurs roamed the earth, it was ON AVERAGE 14 degrees hotter than it is now. Too hot for most mammals who walk the earth today.
All you chicken littles and bible thumpers need to get a REAL "edumacation". Stop approaching weather and climate issue with political bias. The earth and mother nature doesn't care about your political, religious or social beliefs. So stop trying to apply them to the natural order of the universe. It is what it is and we learn more about all the time. Yet, many of you can't see the trees for the forest!
Allowing the planting of this stuff is idiotic. The first major storm of any kind that hits the area and this stuff will spread like wildfire. As they say, it spreads when the stalks break off and then re-root in a new location. The winds from a major storm could carry stalks of this stuff for miles, which would quickly result in the uncontrolled spread of this invasive species. This has the potential to turn into a massive ecological disaster if these people are not stopped.
WTF ? we have already raised hemp for bio fuel and we know we can control it !
THAT STUFF WOULD CREATE SUCH A ROOT MASS THAT IF YOU WANTED TO TILL IT UP FOR SOMETHING ELSE IT WOULD TAKE DYNAMITE ! Cudzue is bad ! this would be just CRAZY !
SOMEONE use some commonsense ! IF THEIR IS ANY ?
BIOFUEL. Then definitely use the KUDZU vine that Pres Carter had brought into SE U.S. to stop errosion. Finally, a use for KUDZU.
Not No but hell no. We did the Switch Grass program and had to keep our fields in switch grass for 3 years even though the program crashed with the government. That cane will take over the river ways and ditches and it is very hard to kill and breeds mosquitos like crazy. These people need to quit messing around with invasive species,
They say they will do ut right this time? Look at kudzo,Privett hedge,Periwinkle, Milfoil,Asian carp. The list goes on and on. They can't control squat. Good news is record crops of corn and soy bean.
This ethanol crap has ruined every gas tool I have.
Hemp anyone? Duh
Anything but HEMP. We will destroy the planet before anyone in a position of power will admit that HEMP or MARIJUANA is a ready source of many of the things we are spending billions trying to find.
If we use wind power your power bill will quadruple. Wind is not free like people seem to be lead to believe. I'm speaking from experience, I work in the power industry. Those big wind turbines are not free to build and the maintanance on them is high for the low amount of power they put out. And of course most of the time they put out the most power when it's not needed to serve people. You think the US going to carbon free power will stop global warming?? It will make it ten times worse. If our power quadruples in price from not burning coal there will not be an industry left in this country. All will go overseas where power is cheap because they aren't regulated like the US is. One power plant in China puts out more emmissions than ten in the US. So when all the jobs go overseas the emissions will get so bad it will be unreal.
When all good jobs are gone overseas and your power bills have quadrupled. And every item goes up with it. Just like when gas has gone up (what do you think the biggest cost of refining petro products are? the electricity used to make them perhaps?) You can't name one manufacted item that electricty isn't used in one form or another.
China's power plants are so bad that during the Olympics they shut down the local Bejjing power plants. Cut off electricty to more remote areas and used their grid to bring power in from these areas. The pollution was so bad in Bejjing it looked like the old pictures you see in the US where everything is covered in coal soot and a thick haze in the air. That's not what the wanted the world to see of them.
If you want to see the United States in complete ruin then the best way is to get rid of coal fired power plants. Just be ready to start speaking Chinese.
This is such a perfect project for the Bozobama administration to get involved in, to pit the Bozobama biofuel nutcases against the EPA environmentalist whackos that Bozobama loves so much. Let the two idiotic, useless braches of the Bozobama team fight it out with each other, spin their wheels, while the rest of us just keep driving the regular, gas-powered cars we always have. Woo-hoo for fracking!! Drill baby, drill!!
Uh, Deweydan--Ulysses S. Grant was president of the United States when kudzu was introduced to the United States way back in 1876, and Grant wasn't the person who introduced the vine, either. If President Carter had been a time traveler, I'm sure he would have written a book about that experience by now.
Bull. Corn you eat is a lot different from the corn that is produced for it's other uses and has nothing to do with the price.
In the new federal guideline's, you can thank M. Obama for this, school can not use or are limited to any products, or even serve corn more than once a week for it's high sugar content. Sugar is sugar and the body does not distinguish between them.
This weed is just like the Asian fish that has devastated the rivers and lakes first in the South, now going North, with their fish farms that got out of control. If it can grow that fast and without seeding it, it is a grave danger to all Agriculture in this country and should be banned immediately.
Email, phone, tweet, even write if you still know how to your congress people and put a stop to this before this Frankenstein project gets into our wildlife system.
Exactly. And high sugar will eventually cause diabetes, no matter whether it came from corn or if it came from sugar cane.
So you're saying that we can send a man into outer space, build a space station on the moon, develop drone technology, do genetic cloning, transplant body parts, create prosthetics that can be activated by human thought, etc., but we can't figure out how to control the growth area of a plant????
Really?
Really. Have you seen what kudzu has done in the south? I'm a gardener. There are plants you just don't want in your garden because they take over and crowd out everything else.
THIS PLANT IS SCARY!!! The Rhizome looks VERY SIMILAR to that of the Dune Grasses that STABILIZE and prevent shoreline erosion in the coastal areas of the Great Lakes as well as the Gulf, Atlantic coasts and Many Other Coastal areas.
Washington state is being Very Prudent in banning this in shoreline areas. Imagine if this non-native (invasive) species were to out compete our native coastal grasses but not stabilize and serve to deter erosion in these same areas. That would be a nightmare!!
The Great Lakes and other Coastal Areas are already suffering from non-native, invasive species. Why do we have to introduce the destruction in order to see the danger??.
Let these plants be grown and shipped fermented to sugars then shipped here or simply used for fuels in the countries where they are native thereby relieving global hydrocarbon demand in an environmentally safe manner. If they are so great, Why aren't they??
S. Williams...Kudzu is sold in many northeastern health food stores and it is used for a large number of cooking recipes. It doesn't grow up north because the winter temperatures. How much intelligence does it take to cut back kudzu if it's such a HUGE problem? Or is that too much like paying people to do a job when allowing overgrowth is so much better? Don't complain about unemployment when your post indicates that controlling overgrowth is no different down south today than it was 200 years ago when swamps were not controlled and Yellow Jack Fever resulted from that kind of ignorance.
Kudzu is now in south and central Pennsylvania, and even a few northern counties. It keeps going further north each year.
Ewent - Just cut it back? BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!! Just a sec... Hehehehhehehehehehe!!! Wait. (snicker) OK. I think I'm OK now. Just cut it back? Wow, you have no idea, do you? You can cut it back all you want. Heck, take a flame thrower and burn it. It's been tried. It'll be back spring. With a vengeance. Once that stuff takes root about the only way to kill it is to poison the ground it's on. ANY root structure left at all and it'll be back in short order. And it spreads faster than a cold in a kindergarten.
And they want to turn similar stuff loose. Great idea! If you're not fond of native plants.
My tongue can certainly distinguish between them.
Ewent, Kudzu grows a lot faster per day than you can cut it. Although the younger leaves do make a fine salad green.
Bull. An acre planted with corn for biofuel is an acre that can't be planted for edible corn.
@ Steven, Actually, the corn in our fields is the same as that in our diet in the form of high fructose corn syrup (a.k.a corn sugar). It's all from the yellow dent #2 corn, the only difference is the processing.
Plus, those federal guidelines that have reshaped our school lunch program, were created because manufacturers put this product in everything we eat. It's so prevalent now, that this HFCS is also used to color our food. Color serves absolutely no nutritional value, but the HFCS add carbohydrates to our foods.
But that good corn in a jar is not to bad. All corn has sugar, grain corn or dent corn is hard. White and yellow corn is what you eat.
Kudzu is and has been choking large swathes of land in the South.
Some of you people are real morons. Just because you don't see it or live with it you think it is OK.
Grow it in the Arizona desert! Put them in our parking lots - ha! It feels like 130 degrees walking across the asphalt in the summer. Would the plant provide shade?
Couldn't the plant be grown in an enclosure - hydroponic farming? Arizona doesn't have hurricanes or (many) tornadoes, so it would be safe to grow them here.
If it's like the native cane which it resembles, you can place a barrier space with cows on it to keep it contained behind a fence. Cows are very fond on the members of the bamboo family in general, so a run with a few cows can surround a plot of cane and keep it in check. They'll wipe it out without the fence if there are enough of them.
Forget it.
Money always wins over common sense.
As proven by the number of people who have money, but no common sense.
Noooo. As farms get split up and sold the cane keeps growing. Put cows around it? Are you crazy? I am sure everyone has a few cows right? All we will do is spray more Poison to kill it and we know how everyone likes that. This idea is ridiculous.
"It'll be different this time. We can control it."
Control is an illusion. Come back when you can "control" kudzu.
There is nothing worth its while without risk.
Once in a country, it is going to just stay. Study it, pur sensible regulationas and let us
try in some areas and see it is worth it. It has some value. It is not dud on its face.
This article is funny in the way it tries to hide yet another possible alternative to oil, coal and natural gas. So let's see if I've got this right. This is a plant that can grow out of control? Does it destroy the fishing industry in the Gulf? Create minor earthquakes in Guy Arkansas, Fayette Ohio, parts of PA and now...NJ? Does this monster pollute groundwater with benzene and other petrochemicals?
This is soooooo stupid. Bamboo is also one of the fastest growing plants and has been brought to the US. Do you see it growing in New York City? Boston? Detroit? Atlanta? Is it tangling the power lines of the subways?
Yeesh...from the sublime to the ridiculous. Let's keep allowing Big Oil and Coal to use their billion dollar lobbyists (paid by all of your gasoline price increases) to poo poo any possibility for advancement of alternative energy so we can remain addicted to fossil fuel energy sources about to become depleted in a couple of decades.
Pretty much what I was thinking while reading the article. I was wondering who the money force is behind the slander of this plant. It sounds good to me. Using corn as ethenol is moronic. It costs more to make than it's worth. Derp. Everytime something promising comes around, there's a lobbyist trying to @!$%#can it.
How about we stick with native species? Because a few people stand to make a pile of money. Who cares if we cause the extinction of more species that depend on native flora that would be wiped out by yet another invasive species.
In upstate NY, purple loosestrife caused eradication of native foods sources for fish and turtles. It didn't start here. And at some point somebody brought it here for what may have seemed like a good idea at the time. Same with kudzu and Giant Hogweed (yes, there really is such a thing).
We're always in such a rush for the next new thing that we take no time to make sure it isn't going to bite us on the butt. Thalidomide. Various weed killers; speaking of which, Monsanto (the GMO giant) wants to start aerial spraying of genetically modified corn with the primary ingredient of Agent Orange. You know, the stuff that causes cancer and birth defects. Insecticides that don't work anymore because of overuse. There's a long list of things we didn't check out well enough before widespread use.
I'm not saying don't do research; I'm saying we need to slow down on greed and self-indulgence.
The problem is this: "Big Oil" as it is named is "self sufficient" The money recieved from tax breaks doesent compare to the profits that they AND the government makes. Whereas prgrams like the one stated has a weakness... the same weakness as Solyndra, and ABC batteries....
All we will be doing is exposing nature to another invasive species and lining the pokets of another company with tax payer money... I rather use gas, coal.. natural gas, and find more efficient ways to use that to than to bank on something we are not going to see ANY return for ANOTHER 10 years and kill jobs NOW along the way...
And guess what... our president (by election not my choice) agrees with me:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/14/obama-climate-change_n_2131419.html
It will end up being subsidized by the gorvernment then it will crash like the Tn Phil Bredeson switch grass program then you have cane out of control. Do not do this.
Be sure there is a herbicide that will kill it out . If this does not leaf out its trouble . All the evasive weed species were not native to this country that are a problem today .
What most naturalists know that some don't is that for every species alive today, there is an antidotal species that can prevent it from becoming invasive...that species is called "Human."
There are many invasive species here in the US especially on the east coast...The most annoying is Virginia Creeper. It can be a skin irritant if not removed and controlled. So, when it grows in my backyard, I put on a pair of gloves and pull it up by the root. Not rocket science.
How about Giant Hogweed? Extremely noxious and painful. The only way to destroy it is with fire. It was brought here as an ornamental in the 1800's, and no one has been able to eradicate it.
How about zebra mussels? Can't get rid of them.
There is a beetle that is destroying all species of ash (that is used for many wood products) called the Emerald Ash Borer. It has spread to 15 states since it was first spotted in the upper Midwest in 2002. Can't get rid of them.
I know we can't prevent every invasive species, but why roll out the red carpet for them?
Right spray more poison. We spray enough crap already.
Ewent, your past couple of comments on this thread have got me quite annoyed.
First, clearly you are so naive to think that humans can halt all plant invasiveness. Sure, if all that every human does is to culture plants on every square inch of soil. If your naive and smug outlook is so simple, why is it that species upon species have eluded cultivation? Kudzu is one, as is mimosa tree, Florida betony, purple loosestrife, water hyacinth, et al.
And, frankly, for you to be on a soap box and then declare a native species (Virginia creeper) as "invasive" is preposterous. It may be an aggressive and fast grower, but it's native to the eastern US. There are natural predators (plant and animal and environmental factors) that limit it here, unlike true exotic invasives, again such as kudzu and various grasses like Arundo and Miscanthus.
And frankly, some of you talk so smugly about the control of kudzu that no one mentions the ecological debacle of the kudzu bug, imported from Asia to "control" rampant kudzu vines. Lo and behold, five years afterward, these tiny smelly beetles don't just eat kudzu, but ANYTHING in the pea family, most notably and disconcerting is soybeans.
Sure, ya'll have a point about the need for alternative fuels instead of sucking the earth dry of petroleum. But don't be stupid in comments and understanding of the widespread issue of invasive plant species!
Holy sh*t!
What Gimmeabreakoradrink,,,said.Good post and accurate.
I grew up in South Carolina and saw entire fields and barns completely taken over by Kudzu. It will climb a power pole, go across the wire over a road, go down the other pole and off into another field. It ruins everything...sorta like Bush did to America.
There is nothing to ruin in South Carolina. Move back there, please!
Allen, you must have been the smartest one in special ed class.
Lordy, don't insult Bush, anyone! It upsets his fans.
Looks like it's being used in other parts of the world. How has Spain been able to control it?
I certainly think it's worth the scientific community's time to research this further. I'm not real excited about using fracking to get natural gas out of the U.S. ground and I'm certainly not happy about increased oil production in the Arctic circle. How many more U.S. coastlands have to be destroyed by greedy, irresponsible oil companies for us to seriously look for alternative sources of energy?
How about harvesting it where is grows right now.
And then ship it here? The cost of shipping may outweigh the benefit of harvesting it elsewhere. In addition we would be dependent on the host country not deciding to suddenly nationalize the harvest production and take over any overseas corporate production facilities. Then there is potential political instability where extremests may decide to burn those overseas crops just to make a point. Sounds like the problem we have with relying on foreign oil production now.
Absolute BS! This will never happen! The best source of ethanol is sugar cane, PERIOD! We are coming into the CNG phase anyway with enough natural gas for a hundred years and 30% cleaner to boot!. Give up this expensive green-crap scenario!
Guess you haven't had fire shooting out of your kitchen faucet yet or had your community's water table poisoned by fracking chemicals...
Guess what, you haven't either! The new fracking chemicals are not flammable and the fracking occurs way below the water table. Quit spreading lies idiot! Fracking has been going on since the 50's so if yuo don't like your water, MOVE!
Cybercraig! Did the fracking companies release their lists of chemicals to you? You got clout, dude, because they don't have to tell anyone else!
And tell the folks in Ohio and place in the upper Midwest about the water table. Because the scientists who have been tracking plumes in the water tables are finding benzene in quantities not produced in nature. And while the fracking companies aren't public about it, benzene is still one of the chemicals they've been proven to use. Causes cancer. Nice.
Which leads to a reasonable question. If what you post is true then how do you and "Intelligent and Independent" know that there are fracking chemicals in your or anyone else's water?
HMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM?
Occasionally we get high levels of benzene in our water. No fracking going on here.
Because samples were obtained in areas where there was fracking within half mile of wells, and there was no other explanation.
HMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM........you might want to find out exactly why you are having spiking levels of benzene in your water. Fracking isn't the only industry that pollutes. Companies from New Jersey have been caught illegally dumping stuff like asbestos on farmland near Utica. NY. Lots of naughty people out in the world.
there are not many companies in new jersey that would be dumping chemicals that are not also from texas, the chemical capital of the world.
Any plant that would make for a good bio-fuel source must grow rapidly and be hardy enough to survive on poor soil where food crops don't grow. So the risk is there in any case. But it is interesting here that a Red state that probably would not vote for any controls on Global Warming is willing to make a buck growing clean energy plants. So I think that should be factored in. If the politics don't work, then nothing happens (except that the droughts get worse each year).
I guess you never heard of the Research Triangle?
boom,
Did you hear whether they voted for President Obama or Mitt?
Global warming ended 16 years ago. Why would anyone be voting to control it?
Yes I did. Check the results by county to see that the Research Triangle area voted blue. Do you expect that the entire state is homogeneous? Most of the state is rural, and red, but all the major cities are blue, and very progressive.
The place in this article is Oxford, NC, which is located in Granville County. That county voted blue.
http://elections.huffingtonpost.com/2012/results/north-carolina
However, since you did not address the question I asked it is clear that you have never heard of the Research Triangle.
It's home to three universities: NC State, UNC Chapel Hill, and Duke. If you are not aware (which you don't seem to be) these are very prestigious universities (mainly the latter 2).
As such, this area has the 3rd highest percentage of people with at least a bachelor's degree nationwide, and 4th highest percentage of people with at least a masters, also nationwide.
As you might expect based upon this, a large number of high tech industries set up operations there, and the highest concentration of wealth in the state is also located there.
Also, NC overall went for Obama in 2008.
Try learning about a place before you comment on it.
boom,
You reason like a Republican, and with irrelevant observations too. Maybe you listen to Rush in secret?
And boom, my comment was directed to getting Red states to buy into solutions about Global Warming, not getting into an argument about the political makeup of the various regions of North Carolina. Yes, I know that there are a lot of smart people there who understand the issue. But you got a little off track.
Funny, I've never heard of a Republican calling for alternative energy. If you say that I reason like a Republican, perhaps that's because I'm so frequently butting heads with them and argue on terms they can understand. You can't sell green to Republicans unless you're talking from an economic standpoint.
Then again, I understand that you are confused. I dislike both parties, for different reasons, although both have bad economic plans.
Pre-Reaganist Republicans I can support, but not the current hypocrites.
We already have a weed that grows fast can be used for a fuel and other uses and is not invasive. It is called hemp.
Yeah I bet besides so many other uses it probably has huge potential for fuel considering it's nutrient and mineral content.
Hempseed oil doesn't need to be processed. Just run it through a filter, and pump it into an 18 wheeler. That's why Standard Oil financed the propaganda that got it made illegal, in the thirties.
i was wondering when someone would get around to mentioning hemp. thanks that i didn't have to be the first.
Sometimes something that is too easy is not the best thing.
Kudzu and anything like it is bad news. Sure kudzu has some
uses but it spreads like wild fire. With kudzu you have to cut it down and till
the field several times to kill it and it will still come back. If the farm
equipment is not cleaned very well it will transplant in to the next field. We can use pond scum for bio fuel and other
native plants; we do not want anything like this growing here in the US.
When I was a kid in Las Vegas in the 70's that stuff grew wild everywhere in the desert.
We thought it was bamboo, we would walk and ride our bicycles, and horses through it.
It would compress down where you could walk trails several feet off the ground fir a mile, it was great fun for kids.
How about using our @!$%# like other countries do for fuel. The supply will never end, we don't deplete our land and resources at the same time removing feces waste.
Our poo can be converted to methane gas which can be used to heat your house, cook your food, and run your car...very similar to propane or natural gas.
TOO BAD THE MONEY MAKERS HAVE THEIR HEADS UP THEIR ASSES OUR @!$%#= BILLIONS OF DOLLARS GET IT TOGETHER FOOLS!!!!
Start in Washington where all the politicians are full of crap.
Bio-fuel Beans, used cooking oil, dirty socks, what's next?
Liberals will go to any length to avoid the obvious and economically friendly route. There's no need to do flips and twists - we have all the energy we and our great grandchildren will ever need,..and it is all right under our feet.
We have an inexhaustable supply of natural gas, oil and coal, but we're not allowed to use it, because of crippling backwards liberal thinking that has infected our 'culture'.
Using bio fuels, or other energy sources, to replace imported oil use is a national security necessity. If you are against oil alternatives, you are (unknowingly) against American interests.
Also, why waste used cooking oil when it can be used for fuel? Do you like being wasteful?
1) they are not inexhaustible, 2) we do use natural gas, oil, and coal. Use of coal is dropping due to the decrease in natural gas price, not due to regulations. Natural gas is cheaper than coal, so market economics win out. We do not have enough oil to provide for ourselves, and even though we are producing more oil now than in the past 10 years, we still need to import the majority of oil used.
boom: You need to read up on just how much oil we DO have. There has been a lot of misinformation floating around so long, that people take it as fact. We are sitting on the largest supply of oil in the world - yes even bigger than Saudi Arabia, and we are just about ready to surpass them right now.
Yes Mr. Boom, we do have enough oil to provide for ourselves, it is just a matter of drilling for it, it won't jump into the distilling towers all by itself - we have to drill for it and we will!
"By 2020, the United States will produce more oil and gas than Saudi Arabia. That’s the once-improbable forecast made Monday by the International Energy Agency in its annual World Energy Outlook."
That is the IEA talking -not my words.
It would be nice if all that oil was going to stay in the USA for our use only, but due to supply and demand, most of what we pump will be going to China. And our price will continue to go up.
Take your own advice and check your facts. Oil shale is significantly more expensive to produce than the oil that is used. It is not the same as the majority of oil we use today. Additionally, you don't seem to understand the difference between having a supply, and actually getting it to the market.
You think gas prices are high now? They will need to be higher for oil shale to be economical.
Using natural gas would be more economical as an automotive fuel source.
Using bio-fuels would be more economical than using oil shale. Even moreso when you account for the environmental costs. For instance, it is cheaper to prevent drinking water from being contaminated than it is to clean it after it has been contaminated. It is cheaper to allow water to naturally be filtered (i.e. from wetlands) than to clean it after it has been contaminated.
I'm chuckling to myself. You just contradicted your original comment with this.
---
If you take supply and demand as true, then you should expect that we get the best available price here. Oil is sold on the world market -- if a barrel of oil costs X dollars, it will cost that regardless of where it goes. Different sources of oil sell for different rates, however, so some countries need to sell at a higher price, and others can sell at a lower price. One would expect suppliers in the US to purchase their oil at the lowest rate they can, and producers to sell at the highest rate that they can.
I agree with your statement regarding suppliers and producers. Suppliers (like home heating) need to make a profit. And if the Chinese can pay tops, then the producers are going to ship to them.
Actually, I agree with pretty much everything you said. One problem with ethanol, though, is that if it is used in higher concentrations than 10%, it can cause damage to older automobile engines. I'm afraid I'm in the pool of people that drives an older (2000 Dodge Neon) car that can't afford anything else at this time. I keep hoping for public transportation where I live, but I think it's going to be a while.
Screw ethanol. Corn is too water-intensive to be used as fuel. The bio-fuel I'm referring to is in complete substitution of gasoline, not as an additive.
The stuff in this article can be grown on land that food cannot be grown on, and requires relatively little water? Sign me up.
Boom Boom: You're not so bright huh? Trouble with comprehension? That's OK, you cut and paste really well!
Something tells me, that you just spent a $hitload of money converting your car to run on french fry grease, and the last thing that you want to hear is plentiful domestic oil. I feel your pain.
It's too bad you didn't read it.
It's sad that you don't understand what oil shale is, even after it was explained to you. Oil shale must be heated to 5000 degrees to release the oil, which if you can't tell is a lot of added expense.
Or perhaps you're simply someone working on behalf of the oil industry, and that's why you're opposed to using the inexpensive natural gas that we have so much of.
I'll likely purchase a Tesla Model S in a year or two, so I don't have any personal use for cooking oil. Sorry to burst your bubble. Have you seen the performance of that car? It's quite nice.
I always find it amusing that after people like you have no way to support your arguments after they are properly refuted, you go off-topic and add an extra "boom" to my username.
I guess something about being unable to support your argument makes people like you regress back to childhood.
Burt, "we" who, kemosabe?
to talk in terms of "us" and "them" regarding sales of worldwide commodities
is a century old concept. just as the people having been thrown off their land to watch the hills razed in W Virgina for the pursuit of "clean coal" would attest to.
Do a search for "who owns exxon stock" and start there.
Obviously you are speaking as an investor, saying that if some of us (ie, you for example) can make a lot of money on the market in the oncoming and already happening energy bubble, then things can be so late nineties pre burst again...
What eats this plant in its native land?
Looked it up, and apparently there is some secret Sufi recipe that uses Arundo donax for its DMT content. But that is something to do with caution, because when concentrated, A. donax has varying amounts of bufotenine, which is like curare and can be fatal in concentrated form.
Elsewhere, the recommended way to kill A. donax is using dry ice and ammonia.
Dry ice and ammonia? We could have a heavy metal concert in the middle of it!
I want to know the sugar content of kundz, this reed and corn. I always real biomass and we can not eat this or that. If coporate concerns cannnot be corraled to use a biomass like kundz or other problem weeds currently in our country ,as a conjoined eradication, renewable energy project, we may have revealed a new type of diva, the energy diva....
Look at and consider the agenda of the people that are against using this fast growing weed. Look at their connection to other similar industries.
You people cannot keep the politics out of this issue either , can you.
If they plant this stuff and it gets out of control then hire people to go around and collect the plant to be used by the bio fuel plants. If and I repeat it gets out of control it makes more jobs for people who need it. Why not let the little people grow it too.(if they wanted too)
By what people are saying here and in the article this stuff grows like mad so I say make a way for people to harvest it and make some money to support there families. Maybe I'm way off base here but I thought it was worth throwing it here just to see what happens if anything else and we all know jobs are needed big time.
I myself would like to see a bio fuel that the everyday person could grow so they could supplement there income and maybe have a better life. Of course I am most likely out of my mind saying something like this but it would be cool in that the big guys don't get to make all the money for once and growing it would help everyone. But first there has to a way to control it it that's even possible.
Remember folks, this was only an idea to help the little guy so don't get all bent out of shape because I voiced my idea here and nothing really becomes of a comment board suggestion anyways right?
You want hemp. It fits all your criteria, and then some. It used to be required for all farmers to grow some, because of it's usefulness. When it comes time to vote in your state to legalize pot do so.
The organization is from North Carolina.... what a shock, a southern state not caring about ecological issues.
Clone my neighbor .
He emits plenty of gas .